Saturday, September 1, 2012

Farewell to another loved one

My friend, Jean Orr, passed away last night. I found out via Facebook, a way which seems terribly impersonal and yet I'm not sure I would have wanted anyone outside of my family to see me melt into tears the way that I did.

Jean was a member of my church, and for the past three years, she and her husband, Floyd, were the leaders of the shepherd group I belonged to. It is the way of our church to rotate shepherd groups, so I've not been part of theirs for a few months. That didn't stop Jean from checking up on me.

Jean had a way about her that few people possess. She was simultaneously no-nonsense and almost psychic in her recognition of pain. This meant that she could spot a false "fine" from a mile off.  When she asked, "How are you?" she genuinely wanted to know, and if you gave a non-answer, she'd call you out with a warm, half-smile that encouraged confidence and enough life experience to really offer answers.

Jean saw us through the loss of Mark, my husband's younger brother. She helped me through the birth of Ducky, and she was the first friendly face I saw in the hospital after my car accident. Jean became a part of our lives and she was there one-hundred percent, available at a moment's notice to help because she looked on everyone as family.

When this final chapter of her life descended, her family asked that friends not visit. She had so little energy and so little time left, that she needed to save it for immediate family. I can imagine how hard that was for her.  Probably Floyd and her children had to beg her to save her energy.  So, the last time I was able to spend much time with Jean was in May.  Pumpkin had STAR testing then, and I had just suffered a seizure, so I wasn't driving. It happened that his STAR testing took place at the church across the street from her home, and I had called to ask if I could spend the time with her and then take the bus home when he was done. There is a bus stop across from her home. But she'd have none of it. She told me she'd drive us home, so for three days, Ducky and I spent mornings with her waiting for the call from the proctors and then she drove us home. In that time we spent, I learned she was getting ready for surgery, to remove some growths that had been found. Getting ready meant rearranging, cleaning, and basically preparing everything so that she would leave things as easy for Floyd as possible. That's just the type of person she was.

Those three days seem such a blessing now. Each morning, we'd take a walk in the field across from her house. Ducky picked up colored rocks and pointed to plants, and she answered endless questions. Meanwhile Jean and I talked about everything: her marriages, her courage to take her kids and leave when the first marriage really bombed out, sewing for money when work was hard to find, the incredible love she had for Floyd, her admiration for Floyd, her love for her children, and her fears for the surgery.


After the walk each day, we'd rearrange furniture, clean out things, and prepare. She wanted meals ahead and she wanted her bedroom rearranged so that she could convalesce easily. Her house was already immaculate by my estimation, but she managed to find things to take out and dust bunnies in places most people would never think about.  It was then that she gave me a home-made shopping bag full of old magazines.  I used that shopping bag today and thought how it is always going to be a reminder to me of my wonderful friend. I can imagine her clever hands making it. And while some people might prefer a photograph of a loved one, it seems perfect. I picture her face each time I use it, her knowing half-smile, her perfectly groomed hair, a little bit of color in her cheeks from walking, clothing that seemed never to get the slightest bit of dust on it. This very practical bag somehow brings her voice back to me too, the way she'd laugh lightly, or give advice that I didn't even know I was seeking, until she'd said it. "Take a step back, honey. Love them, but don't let them hurt you.
Love can be at a safe distance until it is time to come closer." And Jean would like it that something useful reminded me of her. She was very practical. Despite the fact that she was beautiful and possessed that rare ability to never be touched by dirt or baby handprints, she was not frivolous. She was so practical that she even thought to put pockets in the heavy-duty bag she built.

Jean, I loved you. You meant more to me than you can ever know now. I know we did not know each other long. God knows I would have liked to have you in my life longer. When you reached out to me and my family, you reached out with your whole being, nothing held back whatsoever. That's what I want to be like. In three years, your impact on my life was so great that I am forever changed, and for the better. That's a skill, lady. Maybe the best there is. Sleep well. You've earned it.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Common Denominators

You probably remember this term from elementary mathematics. It came up around the time you studied fractions in detail.  When asked to add 3/8 and 1/4, you learned to adjust the fractions so they had a common denominator (in other words, the same one). Once you did that, you were able to discern the total. Ta da.

So this is why hunting for the common denominator has become synonymous with sorting out what issues have in common. This is a double-edged sword because all of my problems have one thing in common no matter which problems we're talking about. Me. I'm always the common denominator.

My life has a recurring theme. People come into my life. I come to love them. I come to count on them. Then, poof! they're gone. Usually that exodus leaves me in a lurch of some sort. Almost always that exodus leaves me a sobbing, sodden mess. It hurts so much that long ago I looked for a common denominator to these painful leavings. Always, the only thing I could find was me.

While sobbing over the latest friend to inexplicably leave my life, I told another friend that I was tired of doing things that scared off people I love and that I wished they'd just tell me what it is that I've done so I could fix it. I can't fix something if I don't know what it is. My friend asked why on earth I should think there is something wrong with me. I told her that I was the common denominator and it turned into some strange conversation where I couldn't quite explain the thinking that got me there.

Honestly, though, this is not crazy talk. There has been once in my life when someone who was giving me the silent treatment actually decided to speak up and tell me she hated that I was always correcting her. I was able to apologize and make an effort to change it. (Cyndi, how I miss you.) She is just one of the many, many people who grew silent and sullen, then disappeared, leaving a giant hole I couldn't quite fill. (Well, in all honesty, Cyndi didn't leave. She did come back around to tell me to shape up. She never quite treated me as warmly though. At least she gave me a reason why.) Sometimes the people involved were even more important than friends. Family members have "dissed" me in favor of friends who eventually betrayed them. In the most painful of those moments, I eventually reasoned out that the friend delivered an ultimatum because we conflicted over something. This is hard for me to understand because if someone delivers an ultimatum to me, I'm contrary enough to bend the other way. "Never speak to Jane again or else we're through" will almost always earn a "bye-bye" from me as I hurry to hang with Jane.

What do I know about myself? I am sometimes abrasive. I don't mean to be but it is there. I've been called a know-it-all enough in my life to understand that knowledgeable is not desirable, unless expertise is specifically requested or unless you are a teammate in Trivial Pursuit. Helping your friends squash other friends in "You Don't Know Jack" is good. Correcting your buddy on his misuse of the word "ironic" is not good.

In my worst moments, I have a terrible temper. I'm only mean if I'm actually scared. Oddly, I can't point to a moment of mean leading to a friend leaving. That would be to easy.

Otherwise, I think I'm generally a decent person. I'm loyal. I'm loving. I don't gossip. I'm creative. I'm reliable. I'm pretty generous. I'm honest to a fault. If I say I'll be somewhere, I will. If some unforeseen act of God bars me from showing up, you will get a call with as much notice as I can possibly provide.

I'm a pretty good listener and I have a fantastic memory, which means that if you tell me that your nephew Joey keeps bugging you for money when you're barely making the rent, I will still know who Joey is a month later when you refer to him as the family sponge. But I won't refer to him that way if I meet him. I'll just help you keep an eye on the silver while he's in the building.

All in all, I think that makes me a pretty good person. So why does this issue keep popping up in my life? Why am I the only common denominator? What is it about me that makes people leave me so easily? And am I inflicting my unknown social failing on my unsuspecting children? Couldn't someone just fill me in?

Monday, August 20, 2012

I'm Missing Something

We've hit that time of year again. For us, the real money drain always starts about now -- shortly before Pumpkin's birthday. We've stretched out the tax refund as far as we could (it would have gone farther if not for the plumbing troubles that still aren't fixed) and something abruptly changes at Hubby's work (just like last year). For the curious, he's going to days, which means a lower hourly rate and his location has changed back to Irvine, which is a long drive. We looked at our budget and the new income less the cost of Hubby's commute, then we gasped and realized that it's going to be a struggle. Last October, we had the additional stress of an accident that added a car payment to the load and a dental bill that's crazy huge and must be paid in installments. If the settlement from that accident ever comes through things might get better. I'm afraid to hope.

So here's the thing. We don't buy alcohol: no beer, no wine, no wine coolers, no zima or whatever is the current craze. Neither of us smoke. We don't go out: no date night, no movies, no beer after work with the buds. We rarely eat out. I don't get manicures, pedicures, or even have my hair cut -- I cut it myself with sewing scissors. I also trim Hubby's hair and the boys' hair. We haven't taken a vacation in a very long time. We don't have the dog shaved or fluffed. Our car is washed in our driveway. House maintenance is done by us or just gets put off out of desperation. I don't even spend money on make-up, and Hubby and I use the same shampoo, soap and toothpaste. We do have some challenging diets that can be expensive. And I'm sure the $250 electric bill I just paid did not help any.  But there are plenty of people around us who make less and do all these things. How?

I don't get it. We carefully budget. We do what we can to pay our bills. We do have some credit card debt, but it's not nearly as bad as the national average. Our house payment here is less than at our old house, though I admit it would still make my mom's mouth drop open.  The car payment is $156 a month. That's really not awful, particularly when so many of the people I'm thinking about have car payments in the three-hundred range. What are we doing wrong? How do these people do all these things: go places, have vacations in cool places or have weekend barbecues with all their friends over? How do they afford to have their hair cut at $20 a pop or more? How? What am I missing?

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I Swear They're Not Always This Loud



What is it about that last hour before bedtime that brings out the little monster in my children? My husband is a day sleeper, and we manage to spend the whole day here, home-schooling, playing, doing chores (or not doing chores) with a minimum of reminders. But in that last hour, after dinner, but before bed time routine, you’d swear I have ten children rather than two. And the older one is definitely the trouble maker.  They haul out the noisy toys (or toys I never imagined could be noisy toys), they bang things, they laugh and clomp down the hallway. Don’t get me wrong, I want there to be laughter in my house. I want them to experience joy and think back on times together that were absolutely wonderful. I’d prefer if those memories weren’t punctuated by constant time-outs and reminders to “KEEP IT DOWN” which always gets shouted, totally doing the opposite of what I want them to do. Damn it, if I didn’t shout, there’s no way they’d hear me through all the noise.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

It Won't Leap in Your Hand

For several years now, my hubby has been part of lecturing our son P on how he doesn't "look" for things when he looks for things. For most of that time and a little before, I had always called hubby "the finder" because, when he wants to, he's perfectly capable of finding nearly anything lost. Lately, though, he seems to think items should jump into his hand. He will stand in the kitchen, staring at the messy island (made messy by everybody shifting things around) and say, "I can't find [fill in the blank]." Today, P lectured his daddy on how things won't leap into his hand, and I nearly busted something trying not to laugh.

I admit that when we're hunting for D's sippy, I will go around the house saying, "Baba? Oh, baba?" I don't really expect it to answer -- that's my way of keeping the baby focused on the task of looking for it. If it did leap into my hand, I think I'd flee the house, screaming my head off.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Back Pain

I've spent the day in excruciating pain. I went to the chirpractor, got temporarily fixed, and put it out again fifteen minutes later by capturing the baby and wrangling him into his car seat.  My friend C has it much worse than I. She also had a car accident -- years ago. Her back was actually fractured and not fixed properly. She's spent seven years being fed pills instead of having any sort of actual treatment.  So me whining about my aching back proves that I am a wimp. Somehow knowing that doesn't make me feel any more like doing the rhumba or cleaning my house.  So now I'm a wimp with a messy house. Tsk, tsk.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Alas, No Pot of Gold

Yesterday, I saw something I'd never seen before -- the end of a rainbow. I was driving home from Target in the rain. This storm has been moving east, and that was the direction I was facing. Behind me the sunshine had emerged, and in front of me the rain was still falling, creating the perfect conditions for a rainbow. But the way it fell, the rainbow dropped right to the pavement and I could see the whole length.

Rainbows, while beautiful, have never looked solid. I found myself wondering, as I drove home, how anyone ever imagined you could slide on one, touch one or dig beneath one. Did they know the stories they created would inspire children's imaginations for centuries? Did they know the stories and the legends that sprung from them would be the bane of every little person with red hair?

Monday, February 13, 2012

Just When You Think You've had a Bad Day...

P had friends over today - I was babysitting for my friend C who so often watches P and D. I had all three of hers, which works fine when we're at her house. Here it was something like pandemonium. P wanted to play games that were way over the kids' heads, then tried to order them around with regard to legos. It was raining most of the morning, so they couldn't go outside. We made cookies, but only the girls were into that (H and S are 8 and 3, so that took a lot of supervision). Once the rain finally took a break, they dried off the slide and swings and set to playing outside, only P wanted to order things around again and abandoned the group. Staying outside with the kids, I got to witness as A took off after the dog with a baseball bat, and when I admonished him, he walked right in front of where H was swinging vigorously, and H kicked him in the head.

As I gathered him up, I was feeling like the world's worst babysitter. These kids are all so nice at C's house and they have a dog and what was that? C arrived not long after A got hurt (he was fine -- shook it off if you can believe that) and she was really freaked about him chasing the dog with a bat and nervous that she'd be heading to E.R. with A, then thankful that it wasn't necessary.

C is one of the best friends I've ever had. She gets me, she gets my kids, she doesn't judge at all. Honestly, she's just amazing. I really want to be a better babysitter than that. And it seemed to me that I'm so used to gifted household that I've no idea how to entertain relatively ordinary boredom. Also, how on earth do you feed five children and have them all like the meal? I got out pineapple for H because she said she loved it and knew I had it. I've sent it over for my kids at least once. Then I discovered that H is a minority. Neither her sister nor brother would eat it. And her sister wouldn't eat ANYTHING. This is a kid that normally eats any snack I have. I'm telling you, I was batting zero.

After C left, I felt like I'd really failed. I went on Gifted Homeschool Forum and posted about it and when that didn't help me feel better about the situation, I called just to make sure A was still okay. That's when I found out my day had nothing on C's.  She left my house and went to the pharmacy to get her meds where she had to wait AGAIN, this time with three kids in tow. When she got home she had no power. No heat, no lights, a gas stove with all electric ignition and digital controls so no oven. She has a fireplace at her new digs but all the wood they have (not much) was outside and not yet covered and it's been raining all day, snowing up there.  Poor thing. She was going to call Edison and see what was up at that point.

When I heard from C again, she was practically sobbing. Her house was a chilly 54 degrees and dropping. She couldn't get a fire going, couldn't get any heat from the oven, Edison had said they were not going to able to turn things back on again until tomorrow (yeah, turned off by mistake that she might have corrected earlier if only she'd been home). C's still living out of boxes so the most she could find for candles were tea lights. It took me another few minutes to think of making newspaper logs. She had told Edison that she had three kids in the house, so while I offered to let everyone camp out here, she was hoping they'd find someone to turn it back on again and so she was stuck there for an hour. I loaded up D in the car (P and his daddy were at scouts) with every newspaper I could find, some scrap wood from the garage, matches and candles and was halfway to Yucaipa when she called and said Edison had come through. She was feeling completely wrung out by then and seemed surprised that I had been on my way. After all the times she's come through for me, watching both kids for endless dentist appointments and rescuing the kids from the ER after my car accident, I guess she never expected me to put her so high on my priority list. I think I've done a bad job of showing her how important she is to my life.

My bad day was nothing. Her bad day was a doosey.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Not A Coupon Zombie, Just Desperate

Ever since Extreme Couponing came out on TLC, there's been a lot more couponers out there. I admit that I'd never heard of extreme couponing until after the show was already a hit. I read about it in a magazine in the dentist's office. A dentist I was seeing, I might add, because of a car accident I was in. The car accident should eventually lead to a settlement. I had to get a lawyer and so, after his share, the IRS' share (whatever that will be) and whatever other surprises there are, I'm just praying that it pays the medical bills. Meanwhile, the dentist bill has already been added to this camel's back, and the car payment for the replacement car, and golly, there's far too much month at the end of the paychecks. Couponing is what I'm hoping will save the day, though in truth it looks like help from my own band of angels is going to be instrumental too.

So I'm trying to save money and it isn't easy. I get how the coupon thing works, and frankly, if I could just buy whatever, I could make grocery money stretch unbelievably. But so far I'm only barely seeing a difference. We can't just eat any old stuff. I noted in the circulars this week that one of the drug stores has campbell's soup for $.59 each. I know I have some $.75 off coupons. That's not just free, it's free with an overage. But alas, Campbell's soup is off our list -- wheat -- so those coupons will go to my friend, C or to my mom.  Not all is lost in the couponing department though, I did do pretty good at Albertson's this week. Spent $20.38, but saved $32.60. Yep, I saved more than I spent and I bought no junk.

You may cringe if you see me in line ahead of you with my big coupon book and my stack of ready coupons, but don't worry, I'll be as fast as possible. I have a family to feed and practically no money to do it with, but I'm making practically nothing go as far as humanly possible.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Blrgleshnurp

My kids are gifted. Okay, well one is confirmed, the other is showing all the signs. Specifically, my older boy is a 2E/HG kid, and the younger is, well, demonstrating unusual-ness (knows his whole alphabet, can escape from anything, insist he should learn to read at 23 months). Now if all the acronyms there are confusing you, you obviously don't spend time in the gifted community and don't know that gifted isn't always as great as it sounds. Yes, P is likely to do great things someday, assuming someone doesn't kill him for mouthing off to them (total strangers of course). He lacks all filters and is literally exhausting. In the past two weeks I've read loads of normal people badmouthing moms like me for calling our kids gifted. Dude, we did not coin the phrase. We're the ones who call our kids temperamental, stubborn, absolutely inflexible, and "doctor, is this really normal for him?" The term gifted not only lacks imagination, it doesn't begin to cover the whole confusing picture. And then, if you say you have a Highly Gifted kid, they (the uninitiated) assume you're bragging. "Oh, so he's not just supposedly more special than my kid, he's "highly" more special than my kid." Yes, that's right. And you want to know what the fact that he's "highly" more special than your kid means? It means he's been kicked out of public school or nearly so. It means he can't seem to get along with peers his own age. It means that I'm seriously worried about the day he knows more than me, and that it might come before he reaches adolescence. It means that every parenting book out there is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. It means I've actually cried with him because he doesn't fit and can't.

Since the term "gifted" does not tell the whole story, I'm officially coining my own. Yep, my kids are blrgleshnurp. Doesn't sound like a nice Latin-based word? That's cause it isn't. That would be normal. It's not Greek or Anglo either, nor any foreign language you can think of.  I like blrgleshnurp because it sounds sort of funny, doesn't give me any clues to what it means, and won't make any parent of a kid who can go to sleepovers huffy. Blrgleshnurp is as unexplainable and difficult as my kid is. It's even hard to spell.

Oh my, another new blog

I can't help myself. I want some place to post the myriad of subjects that race through my brain -- trouble is my many other sites each have a function. So here I am... Another. I'm hoping that if people see the title, "Errant Thoughts", they will understand that it may cover writing, cooking, homeschooling, couponing, or just whatever runs through my head. Maybe I'll never have any readers and that's good too.